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Summary of the impact

The interdisciplinary study of Black and Latino visual cultures by
Professor Celeste-Marie Bernier and Dr Stephanie Lewthwaite has led to the
retrieval of lost and neglected art from the 19th and 20th
centuries and to the display of this artwork for the first time. The
research and recovery process has provided new information for curators
and archivists who have begun to change their practice to reflect this
expanded canon.

Underpinning research

In their roles as Associate Professor (2008-2012), then Professor of
African American Studies (2012-present), and Lecturer in American History
(2004-present), Bernier and Lewthwaite have published extensively in the
fields of African American, Black Diasporic and Latino visual cultures.
They have succeeded in retrieving lost and neglected art and artists from
the 19th and 20th centuries and in mapping
alternative art traditions across a range of media, including
installation, photography, painting, sculpture, textiles and performance
art.

Bernier has charted for the first time a tradition of black transatlantic
heroism in literary and visual culture (reference 1). This includes
the documentation of visual images of Frederick Douglass (references
2-3), proving for the first time that he is the most photographed
American of the 19th century (rather than Abraham Lincoln or
Walt Whitman, as scholars have claimed previously). Lewthwaite has
demonstrated patterns of cross-cultural exchange in the arts that have
shaped Latino identity politics, new spaces for self-representation and
critical responses to dominant forms of modernism and regionalism, also
offering a socio-cultural history for this Latino artwork (references
4-5). Lewthwaite's "Art Across Frontiers" special issue is one of
few studies to bring African American, Native American and Latino art into
comparative and inter-American perspective in a sustained fashion (reference
6). Both scholars have mapped alternative transnational,
transatlantic and transcultural flows in American visual culture, and have
linked historical and contemporary art scenes with the politics of ethnic
representation through their attention to diverse art markets and
institutions ranging from cultural tourism to the museum. Through
publications and symposia, this body of research has revealed the
exclusionary nature of dominant art worlds and archives, emphasising that
the marginalisation and disenfranchisement of artists from local and
global art markets should remain important and politicized concerns for
curators, exhibition consultants and community-based cultural activists.
Existing art historical narratives limit our understanding of artistic
practice and cultural mobility, and Bernier and Lewthwaite have suggested
that the recovery of art plays a critical role in rethinking the canons
and hierarches that dominate institutional policy and market demands.

Details of the impact

Dissemination of ideas

In order to better disseminate their research, Bernier and Lewthwaite have
worked to publically redefine the terms "Black" and "Latino". Bernier
discussed black stereotypes in the context of 19th-century
cultural depictions on Melvin Bragg's Radio 4 programme "In Our Time" (source
1), while Lewthwaite used her research on the relationship between
Latino culture and identity politics for a video lecture on the term
"Latino," which received 8000 views between March and July 2013, and
prompted an online debate in which viewers reflected on their own
identities and the power of ethnic labelling, while questioning
assumptions about the meaning of the term "American" as well as "Latino" (source
2).

Retrieving previously neglected art and influencing institutional
decisions about its collection and display

In early 2010, Lewthwaite recovered artwork by local Dallas-based Mexican
American sculptor Octavio Medellín while on a fellowship at Southern
Methodist University (SMU). Her discovery highlighted the need for
archivists at the SMU Hamon Arts Library's Bywaters Special Collections to
develop more inclusive and representative archival resources, and
supported their decision to expand the digitization of the Medellín
archive. The head of the Bywaters Special Collections stated that
"Lewthwaite's research has validated the decision to digitize the Medellín
archive and is evidence of the project's value" (source 3). The
Digital Collections Developer added that Lewthwaite's research provided
"documentation to support the funding of continued digitization efforts"
by "demonstrating how the digital collection can promote the study of
Mexican-American art, Texas regional art, and art history" (source 4).
Lewthwaite's research has since helped promote the recovery of Medellín as
a Texas modernist. An art historian, who has included Medellín in a
forthcoming book as a result of Lewthwaite's research, explained that
Lewthwaite "did much to `recover' [Medellín] as a truly bicultural
modernist" and that she had successfully situated his work "within a
broader, international sociological and cultural context" (source 5).

Between 2010 and 2013, Bernier retrieved more than 150 photographs of the
black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, most of which were long-lost and
never published. Bernier's research has contextualised these many
photographic portraits as Douglass launching a black heroic tradition in
visual culture. The recovery process has included the identification of
images that were uncatalogued and unrecognized as Douglass, and
the dating of rare images for archivists at the collections that hold the
photographs. In one of many examples of consultation, Bernier helped
archivists at Michigan's Clements Library understand the significance of a
rare Douglass photograph that the library displayed for the first time.
Her insights added "another layer of meaning" to "a never-before-seen
image", explained the librarians. The "investigation" undertaken with
Bernier "makes the image more intriguing" and the library appreciated
Bernier's advice that the scrapbooked photograph in its original form "may
have been an ambrotype, although there's a considerable likelihood that it
was a daguerreotype, which would make the original image an even greater
rarity" (source 6).

Creating networks around Black and Latino visual culture that lead to
new practice, exhibitions, and areas of knowledge

As well as working with archivists on recovery, Bernier and Lewthwaite
have brought together archivists, curators, museum professionals, artists
and academics to share research and ideas about African American, Black
Diasporic and Latino art and artists. Bernier worked with Black British
artists, the Institute for North American Studies at King's College
London, and the Rothermere American Institute (RAI) at Oxford University
(as Senior Visiting Research Fellow in 2013) to offer a number of public
events and initiatives that helped to reshape curatorial thinking. For
example, as a result of Bernier's Terra Foundation-sponsored conference,
"Art Across the Black Diaspora: Visualizing Slavery in America" (RAI, May
2013, attended by 60 people) which brought together artists, curators, art
critics and scholars, one black British artist claimed that Bernier is
"transforming the way that the work of artists and curators from the black
diaspora is critically discussed in studios, galleries and museums,"
especially by encouraging audiences to connect black art with "political
histories." She added: "By consistently giving artists a most valuable
platform upon which to share the critical challenges of practice and
process, theory, history and politics, [Bernier] has allowed space for the
development of future partnerships and the possibility of new ways to
connect with future audiences" (source 7). In an example of
early-stage impact that will be developed over the next three years,
Bernier also partnered with the Institute of International Visual Arts (a
leading UK contemporary visual arts organisation) to produce a new archive
of interviews with black British artists, many of whom were interviewed
for the first time.

A curator who attended Lewthwaite's Terra Foundation-sponsored
international symposium, "Art Across Frontiers: Cross-Cultural Encounters
in America" (April 2011; 28 attendees) has since used the work presented
at the symposium to organise a public lecture and exhibition on the
Guyanese artist Frank Bowling at Tate Britain titled "Focus: Frank
Bowling" (April 2012-March 2013). The Bowling exhibition generated a
series of online resources, including an artist's interview, a TateShots
video interview, a long form interview in Frieze Magazine (May
2012), and reviews in major UK newspapers and magazines (The Guardian,
Independent and TimeOut). The curator said of Lewthwaite's
symposium: "These connections are invaluable. As a curator, I need to be
attuned to how exhibition practices vary widely in different national
contexts. One of the major outcomes from the symposium was the chance to
gain feedback on this research whilst working on the [Bowling] exhibition.
`Art Across Frontiers' was a useful method of connection for me with
scholars working in the UK and in the Americas" (source 8).